With the growing use of email and personal computer software applications to interface to messaging systems, messages are being sent to ad hoc groups at an increasing rate. Message originators commonly use email to send a message to a group of recipients informing them of upcoming meetings, breaking news, lunch plans, and the like. The airtime required for long messages sent to multiple recipients is large, and messaging service providers are anxious to find a way to combine such messages into a single transmission whenever possible.
Some messaging protocols provide a mechanism to allow an unlimited number of recipients to receive the same message. Motorola's FLEX.TM. protocol, for example, can use individual addresses to send each recipient an instruction to listen at a future time and to use a temporary address shared by all the recipients. This is referred to as a dynamic group call. Unfortunately, current network interface protocols do not provide a mechanism for instructing messaging system controllers to form dynamic group call messages. Nor do current controllers have the ability to implement dynamic group call messages on their own initiative.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus that will allow the implementation of dynamic group call messages in messaging systems. The method and apparatus preferably should perform automatically to detect messages that can be combined, and to combine such messages by transmitting them as a dynamic group call message when doing so will save airtime.